by Sue Perry
Hand under hand, Hernandez descended from Monk as though in a hurry to reach the street. "I can't leave Nica. She's got to be in more danger than anybody. I'd better stay with her."
"Prophecy protects her," Monk said.
Huh? I reviewed the obscure phrase that was supposed to be my prophecy. In the blackest of days, a seer, a walker, and a Neutral will lead the foes of darkness. Where was the protection in that?
Monk recited, "'Only the master of slaves can destroy the champion of slaves.'"
I could dimly see why somebody thought that applied to Maelstrom and me, but Frames prophecies made horoscopes look precise. I'd never heard the slavemaster prophecy before and wished I still hadn't. I lost the strength in my legs and fumbled to sit on the stoop. "How many prophecies am I in?"
"That all depends on what new surprises you've got in store."
The admiration in Miles' voice offset some of the terror that this prophecy induced.
Hernandez joined me on the stoop as if to say, where she goes, I go. "Need to get something straight. The prophecy doesn't say Maelstrom will kill Nica, just that he's the only one who can?"
Monk made affirmative noises. I appreciated the distinction and ratcheted my terror down to dread.
Hernandez lobbied, "Let me stay here, Nica needs backup in the New Yorks."
Miles spoke patiently. "She's got protection, you're the one we can't guarantee as safe."
When Miles mentioned protection, something rubbed my back and made it rumble.
Leon! Now I could admit how frightened I'd been about his extended absence. He looked unharmed but ill–kept—he needed another shave. "You mean that Leon is my protection," I realized.
"Got that right." Miles said.
Hernandez wasn't giving up. "You told us not to trust cats."
"When a cat is near, that idea has purpose." Monk sounded frustrated, like Hernandez was being irrelevant.
"Are you saying Leon isn't a cat?"
"Only superficially," Miles replied, then cut us off. "No more questions or debate, we've got to move."
Leon squinted at me. I reached over to pet him and his megapurr started before I touched him.
"I need to be here with Nica!" Hernandez clung to Julian's front door knob. Suddenly I understood his refusal to leave the New Yorks: this was where he'd known Jenn.
"I need a favor," I told him. "Could you take Jenn's stuff back home to L.A. with you?"
He hunched like an anvil was falling toward him, but then he straightened. "What. Okay. Sure."
I told the Towers, "We need to pack."
Leon, Hernandez, and I Traveled back to Ma'Urth. Jenn's stuff was everywhere in my apartment. Removing it was brutal but leaving it would have been harder still.
While Hernandez shoved clothes into Jenn's U–Haul of a suitcase, I emptied the hall closet and found five cloth–bound books. Jenn's journals. She wrote daily, had done so for as long as I'd known her. I thumbed through the cloth books. She had filled four since her arrival in the New Yorks. The fifth journal was empty. I slid to the floor of the closet and clutched it to my heart.
At last I cried about Jenn.
Hernandez didn't question my absence and when I emerged from the closet, his eyes were more puffy than mine felt. I put three journals in the suitcase and set the other two on my bookshelf. Seeing those shelves empty gouged more holes in my heart, a hole for each of my lost books.
By the time we returned to Frivolous Bedlam, Hernandez and I looked like we'd caught a sudden cold. He strapped Jenn's suitcase onto Monk's base and I sat on Julian's front stoop, petting Leon ceaselessly as I prepared for my next goodbyes. I couldn't hear what the Towers said to Hernandez but he returned to me with wonder in his voice, the kind he'd had in the early days, like when we'd first heard Anya's voice come from a cloud. "The Towers have a special way of Traveling long distance. They'll get me home faster than a jet would."
Miles, Monk, and Hernandez took off to the west, Miles flirting with buildings as they went. I imagined them crossing the Hudson, which pleased me, but that reminded me of Jenn gathering tree stones. Which made me shut down thinking, which infuriated me. I just got my memories back and now I couldn't take them! If I avoided memories of Jenn they'd fade. And then she'd really be gone.
"I need a run. You with me?" I asked Leon. He was. We paced each other across town.
"Hey, Cat Shaver, race with us." A trio of food carts lined up along Madison. The request had pleading in it.
I lined up with them. "On your mark, get set—what the!" Everyone except me was already racing.
"Go go go," the carts yelled and the buildings took up the refrain. The carts were unscrupulous racers. Every time I tried to pull ahead, a cart darted across my path. Leon jumped out of the race and perched on a pretzel cart.
I stopped running and called fondly, "I'm out. Bunch of cheaters."
A cart replied, sounding puzzled, "Of course. Cheating is the funnest part."
I squawked like a parrot with a pack–a–day habit. I loved these guys. Jenn would have loved them, too, but she never got a chance to know them. The thought made me stumble but I kept moving.
I'll grieve for Jenn forever, but debilitating active mourning was done with me, again, for now. I needed to go home to Ma'Urth, get a decent night's sleep, and find my allies.
But first I had one stop to make in Bedlam.
80. I CAN'T GO BACK THERE
In Frivolous Bedlam, Brooklyn Bridge still stood but looked like he had stopped a meteorite swarm. He called out to me, "You'll want to stop there. As much as I would savor your steps across my span, I am not a safe structure."
"But they've only collapsed you in a few Frames."
"My health in some Frames defines it for all. Knowing this, they attacked those Frames first."
"Why are they trying to destroy you?"
"I never seek to understand a mind I do not wish to know. Be assured, they cannot destroy me until the dark day when they take Frivolous Bedlam. So long as I stand here, I stand."
"They won't get Frivolous Bedlam." The thought of Warty Sebaceous Cysts near these buildings gave me the conviction of Joan of Arc.
"None will avoid this war when—unnh."
The Bridge wobbled and the East River's cackling spiked.
"You okay?" I waited. I asked again. I waited.
"Time," Brooklyn Bridge whispered, then went silent. I had to conclude the Cysts had just collapsed Brooklyn Bridge in another Frame.
I took off running and returned to Ma’Urth at a jog; Leon stayed nearby. Lunchtime and the Manhattan crowds were heavy. It felt good to get jostled.
Shortly after Leon and I reached my apartment, Hernandez called, which meant he was in a Frame with phone service.
"Hey! How's the trip so far?"
"I'm home, been back for hours." Monk and Miles had taken Hernandez across the United States—more than three thousand miles—in a few hours, but Hernandez' voice held no amazed.
"What's wrong?"
"That day in Ben's apartment." He meant the day that Ben allowed us to hide a young man named Ziti in his apartment. Unbeknownst to Ben, Ziti was a witness to the Gumby genocide. The Cysts came to Ben's apartment, murdered Ziti, and buried Ben's memories beneath an indefinite fear that he'd be sorry if he excavated for them.
"That day," I confirmed.
"My cousin and his family, they're all like Ben was that day. Except for la pequeña. All she can say is, 'they stole the friend'. Ben is gone, Ben is nowhere."
"He thought he was being followed. He might have gotten out in time." Or.
"I'm checking his meetings. I warned Fatty and Mikal. They just got out of the hospital. Cysts could attack them again."
"Okay. Yeah. Thanks. Keep me posted."
"My guess? Ben's alive. They can mess with you more that way."
"Okay. Yeah."
I was out of words. The phone slipped from my hand, crunched on the floor.
Ben had to be alive. I'll
know when he's gone.
Maybe if I'd told him about the Frames.
I wanted to go find the allies, join a battle—any battle—but my previous plan was the wiser one. Get decent sleep and head out in the morning. Hernandez' news was not a sleep–inducer, however. I paced around my apartment. Leon paced with me, then stopped at his food bowl.
I needed a run. I was on the front stoop and the Julian's door had just clicked locked behind me when the lanyard blasted me with pain. I doubled over and grabbed my abdomen—not the best position to face imminent danger. As I straightened, time became fluid and I was aware of many things at once.
I'd come outside unexpectedly and Leon was still inside. I'd dropped my front door key and it glinted on the sidewalk, close but out of reach. Around my block, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Parked cars lined the curbs. Taxis noodled around a delivery truck that was double–parked. Scattered pedestrians did not look my way.
The lanyard stabbed again. I pretended all was as usual and continued to the sidewalk to fetch my door key. My nerve endings jangled, which made my skin itch. A blur shot up the stairs from the basement apartment and stood a boot on my key. It was my old enemy, Scabman.
He wore the same cheap blue suit he'd worn during TV interviews about his N.Y.P.D. unit to stop construction site arson. His eyes glowed red, as they did in my nightmares and on the day that he ripped Lilah limb from limb.
A taxi skidded up the curb and the driver jumped out, dreadlocks swinging.
"Cabbie? Really?" I greeted the other Lobotomist manager.
Mathead flashed her pointy teeth and opened the cab's back door. "Get in."
I couldn't let them touch me, because then they could Travel me to a Frame where they could do what they pleased. Scabman tried to herd me toward Mathead and I tried to go anywhere but there. I made a sprint up the stoop but Scabman jumped higher. I launched for the street, screaming for help.
Daylight, busy streets. No help. Come on, people!
Did I recollect a story where Manhattanites stood around while a pedestrian got murdered?
My launch surprised my attackers and bought me a few seconds of escape. Then somehow Mathead was in front of me and right behind me were the cloying chemicals of Scabman's bubble gum breath.
Mathead dropped her hands. Scabman's boots scraped to a halt. The lanyard pain stopped. I spotted Dizzy behind Mathead's legs. The cat's fur was puffed like she was ready to fight. Seeing Dizzy is apparently what stopped Scabman. I ran to the far side Dizzy, dared a look behind me, and saw the view that had stopped Mathead: Leon, crouched and swishing his tail.
To recap. The cat who seems to understand English and the cat who might not be a cat had just saved me from the bogus cop and fake transportation professional who pretended to be human. Just another day in the Frames.
The Julian's front door unlocked as I reached the top of the stoop. Getting my shaking hand to the doorknob empowered me to turn around. The tableau remained unchanged but now Mathead glared at me, her eyes glowing crimson.
I promised her, "The Lobotomists will need new managers soon. You're going to pay for what you did to Lilah and Sam."
Mathead's expression said whodat? and I wanted instant vengeance. "Leon, Dizzy. Take –" Before I could finish the sentence, Mathead and Scabman had evaporated out of Frame.
My defenders followed me inside, tails in the air.
Now sleep was even less plausible so on to Plan B: fortify, then find the allies. I sat with Leon and Dizzy on the Julian's front stoop and forced myself to gnaw a healthful cardboard protein bar. I also forced myself to remain on the stoop, which now reminded me of Scabman and Mathead. I needed to reclaim it from those fears.
A tow truck pulled away, towing the taxi that Mathead had driven onto the sidewalk. Not long after, a shadow flapped across my legs. Overhead, an enormous pelican circled. His beak was scarred, his eyes were as black as the day after Armageddon. He seemed to return my stare. Surely this was the same pelican who intimidated my books in Bedlam.
The pelican flew east, away from the river, returned, circled overhead, flew off again.
He did this a few times. He must want me to follow him, because when I stepped in his direction, he flew further but when I stopped, he came back to me.
When I stood, Leon got up, too; Dizzy stretched to take our spots in the sun.
The pelican led Leon and I through Central Park and out the other side, close to the Met. As soon as we were out of Central Park, the pelican turned and led us back into the park. Ho–kay, guess he overshot.
Then things got screwy. The bird would fly into Central Park, I'd follow, he'd fly out again. It took six repetitions before I noticed that he dove steeply lower each time he entered the park's airspace, and flew steeply higher each time he exited.
At last I got it. He wanted me to go downhill when I entered the park. But Central Park was at the same level as the street. And nowhere did the elevation change as much as the pelican's flight path implied.
Except in Maelstrom's Frame, where Central Park was a crater.
"I can't go back there," I shouted to the sky. It being Manhattan, no passersby looked up. The pelican continued to dive into Central Park. I dropped to the curb and pressed my forehead into my knees. I couldn't go back to Maelstrom's Frame.
A horn blasted me to my feet. I'd blocked a bus stop. From a nearby bench, Leon played sphinx and watched the pelican's steep dives and climbs. I dropped onto Leon's bench. I was near the spot where Kelly Joe had first Traveled me to Maelstrom's Frame and we followed trails into the Central Park crater.
I wanted to assume that it was safe for me to go to Maelstrom's Frame because the pelican said to go. Of course, perhaps I misunderstood everything. Perhaps this was just a bird riding air currents.
I walked toward Central Park with Leon close beside me. Correction. On Ma'Urth, he was right there. But when I Traveled to Maelstrom's Frame, Leon did not follow, to my dismay.
In Maelstrom's version of the Upper East Side, the streets around me were empty but I wasn't alone. The air echoed with the grinding of clockwork dogs and militaristic shouts. I could not have been more exposed. The previous shells of buildings were collapsed in heaps of fresh rubble. My nose stung with an odor like sulfuric sauerkraut, giving me another reason to hurry. In three steps of erratic walk I was over the sharp lip and into the Central Park crater. I kept up the erratic walk as I descended, earning cramps in both legs.
The slope was steeper than I remembered it, the rock more rubbly, and the landscape barren of previous patches of feeble plant life. The rock edges were jagged as though recently blasted. I picked my way downslope without breaking my neck or raising a ruckus.
All these signs of fresh destruction. Were these what the pelican had sent me here to see?
Eerie, how silent the crater got when I reached the level where sound was blocked. With Kelly Joe, that silence had been reassuring. Today, it made me think I was missing something I shouldn't be missing. I headed back up toward the surface.
Those marching steps and shouted orders that echoed around me sounded like troops in training. Was that what the pelican wanted me to know?
Closer to the surface, I was more exposed yet no more enlightened. I looped north, descending into the crater once again. Here, below the sound barrier, the flatter surfaces had a peculiar sheen. I stopped and stared. What was shiny? Should I go closer or back away? My eyes glazed with strain as I tried to see more. Again, a surface glinted. As though the surface had moved. Over there, another glint. Way down below, another one.
Watching for glints was like watching fireflies—wherever I wasn't looking, a light flashed. I went deeper into the crater, sensing the reality before my thoughts articulated it. Finally, I had to stop. I could walk no farther. From here on down, the trails and slopes were blocked. They were covered in books.
Lose Twenty Pounds and Summer hovered by my shoulders. With a hushed squawk from Lose Twenty Pounds, books rose from their resting p
laces and idled on all sides—as far as I could see—creating a breeze that hit me from all directions. Summer squawked and every book dipped, down then up, in the book gesture of respect. To me.
I grabbed my two books and pressed one to each cheek. "You're alive. I'm so proud and grateful. What—what of my other books? Did any survive?"
The Blue–Eyed Shan limped into view. Missing his back cover, he flew in floppy arcs. He, Summer, and Lose Twenty Pounds shed text on the trail above me. The light was dim so I had to examine each sentence from multiple angles. Gradually I read that five of my nine books had survived; and all these books in the crater were now allies. An arithmetic book had estimated that nearly ten thousand books were here.
"I'll need help to get you out of here. Stay hidden. I'll be back."
81. NICA'S ARMY
Kelly Joe's driver's license was issued in Kansas.
"Sir, this license expired eleven years ago." The truck rental clerk cemented her smile and I imagined her foot punching the weirdo alert button below the counter.
"Why so it has, so it has," Kelly Joe returned the license to his wallet.
"No biggie, I'll be the only driver anyway." I inserted myself between the clerk and Kelly Joe to sign the paperwork. The clerk's jowls twitched and she disappeared in the back room for so long that I expected her to return with the F.B.I. But she emerged with truck keys and an expression to sour honey.
We rented the biggest truck we could drive without a special license. Outside Central Park, we parked it behind a street jackhammer operation. I donated a collection of $20 bills to the workers and they let me redistribute their Temporary No Parking signs. At quick glance, our truck seemed to be part of their operation.
Zasu stayed with the truck on Ma'Urth while Kelly Joe and I went for the books. Travel to Maelstrom's Frame is disgusting as well as dangerous. Its air feels like a neglected outhouse smells. I lost count of the number of trips we made, perhaps through the numbing effect of continuous lanyard pain while in Maelstrom's Frame.